{A discourse delivered on Sunday, December 31, 1876.}
"I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil, for verily I say unto you till
heaven and earth pass away one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass
from the law till all be fulfilled." "Resist not evil, * * * bless them
that curse you, do good to them that hate you."
In these sayings of Jesus the key note of early Christianity is struck.
It was not a revolt against Judaism, it was but a reiterated assertion
of what other and older Prophets of the Hebrews had so often and so
fervently preached. The law was to remain intact, but the spiritual
law was meant, the deeper law of conscience that underlies the forms of
legislation and the symbols of external worship.
There is a rare and gracious quality in the personality of Jesus as
described in the Gospels, which has exercised its charm upon the most
heterogeneous nations and periods of history wide apart in the order of
time and of culture.
To grasp the subtle essence of that charm, and thereby to understand
what it was that has given Christianity so powerful a hold upon
the affections of mankind, were a task well worthy the attention of
thoughtful minds. We desire to approach our subject in the spirit of
reverence that befits a theme with which the tenderest fibres of faith
are so intimately interwoven; at the same time we shall pay no regard
to the dogmatic character with which his later followers have invested
Jesus, for we behold his true grandeur in the pure and noble humanity
which he illustrated in his life and teachings.
The New Testament presents but scant material for the biography of
Jesus, and the authenticity, even of the little that remains to us, has
been rendered extremely uncertain by the labors of modern critics. A few
leading narratives, however, are doubtless trustworthy, and these will
suffice for our purpose. A brief introduction on the character of the
people among whom the new prophet arose, the characteristics of the
age in which he lived, and the beliefs that obtained in his immediate
surroundings, will assist us in our task.
The expectation of the Messiah had long been rife among the Jews.
Holding themselves to be the elect people of God, they believed the
triumph of monotheism to be dependent upon themselves. The prophets of
Jehovah had repeatedly assured them that their supremacy would finally
be acknowledged. Events however had turned out differently. Instead of
success they met with constant defeat and disaster; Persia, Egypt, Syria
had successively held their land in subjection; the very existence of
their religion was threatened, and the heathen world, far from showing
signs of approaching conversion, insisted upon its errors with increased
obstinacy and assurance. And yet Jehovah had distinctly promised that he
would raise up in his own good time, a new ruler from the ancient
line of Israel's Kings, a son of David, who should lead the people to
Victory. To his sceptre all the nations would bow, and in his reign the
faith of the Hebrews would be acknowledged as the universal religion.
Every natural means for the fulfilment of these predictions seemed now
cut off, nothing remained but to take refuge in the supernatural; it was
said that the old order of things must entirely pass away; a new heaven
and a new earth be created and what was called the Kingdom of Heaven
might then be expected. The "Kingdom of Heaven," a phrase that
frequently recurs in the literature of the Jews, is used, not to
describe a locality, but to denote a state of affairs on earth, in
which the will of heaven would be generally obeyed without the further
intervention of human laws and government. The agency of the Messiah was
looked to, for the consummation of these happy hopes. To reward those
who had perished before his coming, many moreover of those that slept
in the dust would awaken, and the general resurrection of the dead would
signalize the approach of the millennium.
At the end of the first century B. C. these expectations had created
a wild ferment among the population of Palestine. Now if ever, it was
fondly urged, they must be fulfilled. The need was at its highest, help
then must be nighest. For matters had indeed grown from bad to worse,
the political situation was intolerable, after the brief spell of
independence in the days of the Maccabees, the Roman yoke had been
fastened upon the necks of the people, and the weight of oppression
became tenfold more difficult to support from the sweet taste of liberty
that had preceded it. The rapacity of the Roman Governors knew no
bounds. A land impoverished by incessant wars and the frequent failure
of the crops, was drained of its last resources to satisfy the
enormous exactions of a foreign despot, while to all this was added the
humiliating consciousness that it was a nation of idolators which was
thus permitted to grind the chosen people.
Nor was the condition of religion at all more satisfactory. It is true
the splendid rites of the public worship were still maintained at the
Temple, and Herod was even then re-building the Sanctuary on a scale of
unparalleled magnificence. Bright was the sheen and glitter of gold upon
its portals, solemn the ceremonies enacted in its halls, and grand and
impressive the voices of the Levitic choirs as they sang to the tuneful
melody of cymbals and of harps. But the lessons of history teach us
that the times in which lavish sums are expended on externals, are not
usually those in which religion possesses true vitality and power and
depth. Here was a brand flickering near extinction; here was a builder
who built for destruction; the Temple had ceased to satisfy the needs of
the people.
In the cities an attempt to supply the deficiency was made by the party
of the Pharisees. They sought to broaden and to spiritualize the meaning
of scripture--they laid down new forms of religious observance by means
of which every educated man became, so to speak, his own priest. The
religion of the Pharisees however assumed a not inconsiderable degree of
intellectual ability on the part of its followers. So far as it went it
answered very well for the intelligent middle classes. But out in the
country districts it did not answer at all; not for the herdsmen, not
for the poor peasants, not for those who had not even the rudiments of
learning and who could do nothing with a learned religion. And yet these
very men before all others needed something to support them, something
to cling to, even because they were so miserably poor and illiterate.
They did not get what they wanted--they felt very strongly that the
burdens upon them were exceedingly grievous; that while they suffered
and starved, religion dwelt in palaces, and had no heart for their
misfortunes. They felt that something was wrong and rotten in the then
state of affairs, and that a new state must come, and a heaven-sent
king, who would lend a voice to their needs, and lift them with strong
arms from out their despair and degradation. Nowhere was this feeling
more marked than in the district of Galilee. A beautiful land with
green, grassy valleys, groves of sycamores, broad blue lakes, and
villages nestling picturesquely on the mountain slopes, it nourished
an ardent and impulsive population. Their impatience with the existing
order of things had already found vent in furious revolt. Judah, their
famous leader, had perished; his two sons, James and Simon, had been
nailed to the cross; the Messiah was daily and hourly expected; various
impostors successively arose and quickly disappeared; when would the
hour of deliverance come; when would the true Messiah appear at last?
It was at such a time and among such a people, that there arose Jesus
of Nazareth in Galilee. What was the startling truth he taught? What was
the new revelation he preached to the sons of men? An old truth, and an
old sermon--Righteousness; no more, meaning nothing at all, a mere trite
common-place, on the lips of the time-server and the plausible vendor of
moral phrases. Meaning mighty changes for the better, when invoked with
a profounder sense of its sanctity, and a new sacredness in life, and
larger impulses for ever and for ever. Righteousness he taught, and
the change that was to come by righteousness. Yes, so deep was his
conviction, so profoundly had the current conceptions of the day
affected him, that he believed the change to be near at hand, that he
himself might be its author, himself Messiah.
The novelty of Jesus' work has been sought in various directions. It has
been said, for instance, to consist in the overthrow of phariseeism; and
it is true that he rebukes the pharisees in the most severe terms; these
reproaches, however, were not directed against the party as a whole, but
only against its more extravagant and unworthy members. The pharisees
were certainly not a "race of hypocrites, and a generation of vipers."
Let us remember that Jesus himself, in the main, adhered to their
principles; that his words often tally strictly with theirs; that even
the golden sayings which are collected in the sermon on the mount, may
be found in the contemporaneous Hebrew writings, whose authors were
pharisees. Thirty years before his time, Hillel arose among the
pharisees, renowned for his marvellous erudition, beloved and revered
because of the gentleness and kindliness of his bearing, the meekness
with which he endured persecution, the loving patience with which he
overcame malice and hate. When asked to express in brief terms the
essence of the law, he to the pharisee replied, "Do not unto others what
thou wouldst not that others do unto thee;" this is the essence, all the
rest is commentary,--"go and learn." Jesus fully admits the authority
of the pharisees. "The pharisees," he says, "sit in Moses' seat; all
therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do." If we
read the gospel of Matthew, we find that he does not attempt to abrogate
the pharisaic commandments, but only insists upon the greater importance
of the commandments of the heart. "Woe," he cries, "or ye pay tithe of
mint, of anise and cumin, but ye have omitted the weightier matters of
the law, judgment, mercy and faith, these ought ye to have done, _and
not to leave the other undone_,"--and again, "If thou bring thy gift
to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against
thee, leave there thy gift before the altar and go thy way; first be
reconciled to thy brother, and then _come and offer thy gift_." The
leper also whom he cured of his disease, he advises to bring the gift
prescribed by the Jewish ritual. We cannot fully understand the conduct
of Jesus in this respect, unless we bear in mind that he believed the
millenial time to be near at hand. At that time it was supposed
the ancient ceremonial of Judaism would come to an end by its own
limitation; until that time arrived, it should be respected. He does
not wage war against the religious tenets and practices of his age; only
when they interfere with the superior claims of moral rectitude does
he bitterly denounce them, and ever insists that righteousness be
recognized as the one thing above all others needful.
Nor is the novelty of Jesus' work to be found in the extension of the
gospel to the heathen world. It seems, on the contrary, highly probable
that he conceived his mission to lie within the sphere of his own
people, and devoted his chief care and solicitude to their welfare. "I
am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel," he says;
and thus he charges his apostles, "Go ye not into the way of the
Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not. Go rather to
the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and as ye go, preach, saying the
kingdom of heaven is at hand." And yet his exclusive devotion to
the interest of the Jews is not at variance with the world-embracing
influence attributed to the Messianic character. In common with all
his people, he believed that upon the approach of the millennium, the
nations of the earth would come of their own accord, to the holy mount
of Israel, accept Israel's religion, and thenceforth live obedient to
the Messianic King. The millennium was now believed to be actually in
sight. "Verily I say unto you there be some standing here who shall not
taste of death until they see the Son of man coming in his Kingdom."
From the Jewish standpoint, therefore, which was the one taken by Jesus
and the earliest Christians, the mission to the heathen was unnecessary.
And again it has been said that the evangel of Jesus was new, in that
it substituted for the stern law of retribution the methods of charity
and the law of love; that while the elder prophets had taught the people
to consider themselves servants of a task-master, he taught them freedom
and brotherhood. But is this true? Will any one who has read the Hebrew
Prophets with attention, venture to assert that they instil a slavish
fear into the hearts of men; they whose every line speaks aspiration,
whose every word breathes liberty? It is true their language is often
stern when they dwell on duty. And it is right that it should be so, for
so also is duty stern and in matters of conscience sentimental ism is
out of place, harmful. Simple obedience to the dictates of the moral law
is required, imperatively, unconditionally, not for pity's sake, nor for
love's sake, but for the right's sake, simply and solely because it
is right. But the emotions that are never the sufficient sanctions of
conduct may ennoble and glorify right conduct. And how tenderly do the
ancient prophets also attune their monitions to the promptings of the
richest and purest of human sympathies. "Thy neighbor thou shalt love as
thyself," was written by them, and "Have we not all one Father, has not
one God created us all." Thy poor brother too is thy brother, and in
secret shalt thou give charity. In the dusk of the evening the poor are
to come into the cornfields and gather there, and no man shall know who
has given and who has received. The ancient prophets were idealists,
preachers of the Spirit as opposed to the form that cramps and
belittles. In Jesus we behold a renewal of their order, a living protest
against the formalism that had in the interval become encrusted about
their teachings, only differing from his predecessors in this, that the
hopes which they held out for a distant future, seemed to him nigh their
fulfilment, and that he believed himself destined to fulfil them.
If we can discover nothing that had not been previously stated in the
substance of Jesus' teachings, there is that in the method he pursued,
which calls for genuine admiration and reverence, the method of rousing
against the offender the better nature in himself: of seeming yielding
to offence based on an implicit trust in the resilient energy of the
good; of conquering others, by the strength of meekness and the might of
love. Hillel too was endowed with this strength of meekness, and Buddha
had said, long before the days of Jesus: "Hatred is not conquered by
hatred at any time, hatred is conquered by love; this is an old rule."
But in the story of no other life has this method been applied with such
singular sweetness, with such consistent harmony from the beginning to
the end. Whether we find him in the intimate circle of his disciples,
whether he is instructing the multitude along the sunny shores of Lake
Gennesareth, whether he stands before the tribunal of his judges, or in
the last dire agonies of death--he is ever the patient man, the loving
teacher, the man of sorrows, who looks beyond men and their crimes to
an ideal humanity, and confides in that; who gives largely, and forgives
even because he gives so much.
But we shall not touch the true secret of his power until we recall
his sympathy with the neglected classes of society; that quality of his
nature which caused the poor of Galilee to hail him as their deliverer,
which produced so lasting an impression upon his contemporaries, and
made the development of his doctrines into a great religion possible.
His gospel was preeminently the gospel for the poor: he sat down with
despised publicans, he did not shun the contamination of lepers, nay nor
of the moral leprosy of sin--he visited the hovels of paupers and
taught his disciples to prefer them to the mansions of the fortunate; he
applied himself with peculiar fervor to those dumb illiterate masses of
Galilee, who knew not whither they might turn, to what they might cling.
He gave them hope, he brought them help. And so it came about that in
the early Christian communities which were still fresh from the presence
of the master, the appeal to conscience he had made so powerfully,
resulted in solid helpfulness; so it came about that in those pristine
days, the Church was a real instrument of practical good, with few
forms, and little parade, but with love feasts and the communion table
spread with repasts for the needy. "Come unto me all ye that labor and
are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and
learn of me, * * * for my yoke is easy and my burden is light." It is
from such particulars that there was drawn that fascinating image which
has captivated the fancy and attracted the worship of mankind. The
image of the pale man with the deep, earnest eyes, who roused men to new
exertions for the good, who lifted up the down-trodden, who loved little
children and taught the older children in riddles and parables that they
might understand, and the brief career of whose life was hallowed all
the more in memory, because of the mournful tragedy in which it closed.
All the noblest qualities of humanity were put into this picture and
made it lovely. It was the humanity, not the dogma of Jesus, by which
Christianity triumphed. Like a refreshing shower in the perfumed spring,
his glad tidings of a new enthusiasm for the good came upon the
arid Roman world, sickening with the dry rot of self-indulgence, and
thirsting for some principle to give a purpose to the empty weariness
of existence. Like a message from a sphere of light it spread to the
Germanic tribes, tempered the harshness of their manners, taught them
a higher law than that of force, and conquered their grim strength with
the mild pleadings of the Master of meekness in far-off Galilee.
It is the moral element contained in it that alone gives value and
dignity to any religion, and only then when its teachings serve to
stimulate and purify our aspirations toward the good, does it deserve to
retain its ascendancy over mankind. Claiming to be of celestial origin,
the religions have drawn their secret spell from the human heart itself.
There is a principle of reverence inborn in every child of man,--this he
would utter. He sees the firmament above him, with its untold hosts;
he stands in the midst of mighty workings, he is filled with awe; he
stretches forth his arms to grasp the Infinite which his soul seeketh,
he makes unto himself signs and symbols, saying, let these be tokens of
what no words can convey. But a little time elapses, and these symbols
themselves seem more than human, they point no more beyond themselves,
and man becomes an idolator, not of stone and wood merely. Then it is
needful that he remember the divine power with which his soul has been
clothed from the beginning, that by the force of some moral impulse he
may break through the fetters of the creeds, and cast aside the weight
of doctrines that express his best ideals no more. And so we find in
history that every great religious reformation has been indebted for its
triumphs, not to the doctrines that swam upon the surface, but to the
swelling currents of moral energy that stirred it from below; not to the
doctrine of the Logos in Jesus' day, but to the tidings of release
which he brought to the oppressed, not to "justification by faith,"
in Luther's time, but to the mighty reaction to which his thunderous
protest lent a voice, against the lewdness and the license of a corrupt
and cankerous priesthood. The appeal to conscience has ever been the
lever that raised mankind to a higher plane of religion.
Conscience, righteousness, what is there new in these--their maxims
are as old as the hills? Truly, and as barren often as the rocks. The
novelty of righteousness is not in itself, but in its novel application
to the particular unrighteousness of a particular age. It was thus that
Jesus applied to the sins and mock sanctities of his day, the ancient
truths known to the prophets and to others long before him. It is
thus that every new reformer will seek to bring home to the men of his
generation what it is that the ancient standard of right and justice now
requires at their hands. That all men are brothers, who did not concede
it? But that the enslaved man too is our brother, what a convulsion did
that not cause, what vast expenditure of blood and treasure until that
was made plain. That we should relieve the necessities of the poor, who
will deny it? But that a social system which year by year witnesses the
increase of the pauper class, and the increase of their miseries, stands
condemned before the tribunal of Religion, of justice, how long will
it take before that is understood and taken to heart? The facts of
righteousness are few and simple, but to apply them how mighty, how
difficult a task. The time is approaching when this stupendous work
must be attempted anew, and we, a small phalanx in the army of progress,
would aid, with what power in us resides. Let this inspire us that we
have the loftiest cause of the age for our own, that we are helping
to pave the way for a stronger and freer and happier race. For by so
laboring, alone can we feel that our life has a meaning under the sky
and the sacred stars.
The year in which we have entered upon our journey is passing away.
To-night when the midnight bells send forth their clamorous voices, we
shall greet the new year, and the work it brings. No peaceful task dare
we expect, but something of good accomplished may it see.
"Ring out wild bells to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light,
The year is dying in the night,
Ring out wild bells and let him die.
"Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring happy bells across the snow,
The year is going, let him go,
Ring out the false, ring in the true."